by Jeff Strand
"I know who it is," she says.
"Who?"
"Maraud the Berserker."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Maraud the Berserker, huh?" I ask. "He sounds like a charming addition to our little group. Where is he?"
"I don't know."
"Let's look him up, then."
Seth and I both do Internet searches with our cell phones, but come up with nothing.
"What's the plan?" I ask. "Wait for more info?"
"I'm not sure that I'll get more."
"Well, there probably aren't a lot of Maraud the Berserkers living in Bridge Point, New Mexico. Let's start with the closest game store."
Bridge Point does not, alas, have a game store, or a comic book shop, or any obvious place where a role-playing gamer might hang out. While I drive, Seth searches online for any gaming groups in the area, but has no luck.
"Maybe he's not a gamer," Seth says. "Maybe he's the lead singer for a death metal band."
"That's actually not a bad guess," I tell him. "I'd go see a death metal band fronted by Maraud the Berserker."
"I hate to cause trouble for everybody," says Harriett, "but we may have no choice but to simply ask around. I apologize in advance if this will make you feel foolish."
"I can handle it," I say.
I park at the library. We decide to split up and meet back there in an hour.
I do indeed feel stupid going into various businesses and asking if they've heard of him, though I deflect it somewhat by starting each query off with, "This is going to sound weird, but..."
Nobody has heard of Maraud the Berserker. They can't even point me in the direction of a person whose social group might contain somebody with that moniker. One gentleman does say, "Sounds like my three-year-old! Haw, haw, haw!" but it's not helpful.
I reunite with Harriett and Seth an hour later. Neither of them have had any success. We can't think of a better plan than to continue asking around, so we split up for another hour.
An elderly woman at a cupcake shop offers to tell me everything she knows in exchange for a purchase. I buy a red velvet cupcake, and she says that she knows nothing. The cupcake is stale.
Fifteen minutes before I'm supposed to be back at the library, I ask a bartender, who has never heard of him. But as I walk toward the exit, a man in an ill-fitting brown suit waves me over to his booth.
"Sit down, sit down," he says.
I sit across from him. I can't quite discern his age in the poor light, though I'm fairly sure that his thick black mustache is dyed.
"You're looking for Maraud the Berserker?"
"Yes. Do you know him?"
"You a cop?"
"No."
"He owe you money?"
"No, nothing like that. I want to offer him a job. It's sort of a—"
"No need to explain. I don't want to know." The man strokes his mustache. "You got a card?"
I take a business card out of my wallet and write down my cell phone number. "Just FYI, I don't work there anymore."
"That's not important. This is just to make sure you are who you say you are." He tucks the card into his suit pocket, and takes a pen and small notebook out of the same pocket. "You had amazingly good timing, my friend. Amazingly good. You can meet him tonight." He writes a phone number on the paper, tears it out of the notebook, and slides it across the table to me. "Call this number at eleven-forty-five. If the screening checks out, you'll be given a place to be at midnight. Admission is five hundred bucks. Cash, obviously. There's a twenty-four-hour cash advance place right around the corner if you need it."
"Five hundred dollars? Seriously?"
The man chuckles. "It's worth it. Don't bring any weapons. You'll be searched before you go in, and if you've got weapons or a wire or any kind of recording device, it will be a terrible night for you. Come alone."
"I'll need to bring a friend. She wants to talk to him herself."
"It's a she? No admission fee for her, then. Same rules about weapons and wires apply. They'll repeat these rules for you when you call, in case you forget."
"I don't suppose you could just give me his contact information?"
"Nope. Relax, you'll have a memorable night."
* * *
Seth is already there when I return to the library. "Any luck?" he asks.
"I've got a solid lead. Not an appealing lead, but a solid one. I'll explain when Harriett gets here."
Harriett looks kind of despondent when she arrives. She cheers up when I tell her what I know.
"I've got the money," she says.
"Now, you understand that if they're going to search us before we go in, it's probably not a casual dinner event, right?"
"Yes."
"You need to be okay with the idea that it sounds like it might be a sex party."
Harriett frowns. "I beg your pardon?"
"That's the vibe I'm getting. I'm not saying that we'll have to have sex. I know I won't be having any. You can make your own choice, but I assume that you're not interested."
"I am most definitely not."
"Didn't think so. What I'm saying is that other people may be having sex around us, and it might be really weird sex, so you have to be prepared for it."
"How much was admission?" Seth asks.
"Five hundred dollars. You're not going."
"If it is something of that sort, I'll avert my eyes as much as possible and we won't stay long," says Harriett.
"And I hate to say this, but if he's some big guy in a thong, he's not getting in my car. He can find his own transportation."
"We will address that after we meet him."
We check into a hotel, getting three separate rooms this time, and I lie on the bed, trying to relax. Hopefully we can talk to Maraud, get him to weep over his destiny, and be out of there in a hasty manner.
A couple of hours later, with no relaxation acquired, we meet back down in the lobby so I can make my eleven-forty-five call.
A scratchy male voice answers. "Mr. Portin?" The voice is kind of creepy, giving me a flashback to a pre-caller-ID era when him knowing my name would've been unnerving.
"Yes."
"You've been approved. Midnight at 1247 Galwick Avenue. Do not bring any weapons or recording devices. They will be confiscated and not returned. Please make sure that you've counted your admission fee before you hand it to the doorman, because it makes everybody unhappy when we have to collect the shorted amount. Do you need the address again?"
"No, I'm good. Thanks."
"See you at midnight."
I disconnect the call. We decide that Seth will come with us but wait in the car, and though he will not have his entire bag of weapons next to him, he'll have one sword, which he'll use exclusively to intimidate somebody in the extremely unlikely event that we have to flee from somebody chasing us back to the car.
It takes us about ten minutes to drive to the address. From the outside, it looks like a warehouse, taking up about half a block.
"Ah, abandoned warehouses," says Seth. "Where all the best crime happens."
There's no parking permitted on the street in front of the building, so we have to drive to a parking garage a couple of blocks away. I leave the car keys with Seth, and he promises that, if things get ugly, he'll be a skilled getaway driver.
Of course, things won't get ugly. We're not walking into a dangerous situation. I may be scarred by the things we see, and Harriett may have her perception of human sexuality irrevocably altered, but we won't be in actual, physical peril.
Well, unless Maraud the Berserker is a drug dealer.
Or a drug user. A guy whacked out on crystal meth could, conceivably, acquire the nickname "Berserker."
Hopefully it's just a sex party. It's not a betrayal of Becky's memory as long as I don't touch anything, and I'll do everything in my power to stop any stray body parts from brushing against me.
We walk over to a steel door. I knock.
A few moments later, the door swi
ngs open. A sweaty, unshaven middle-aged man with a huge belly stands there. "Name?"
"Evan Portin."
He looks at a clipboard, then glances at Harriett.
"And she's your plus-one?"
"Yes."
"All right. Come on in."
We walk inside. I hear the lock engage as he shuts the door behind us.
We're in a small waiting room. Faintly, I can hear the sounds of people shouting like they're at a sporting event. This must be quite a sex party.
"Admission?" he asks.
Harriett hands him a roll of twenties. He flips through them very quickly, then, satisfied, opens a desk drawer and tosses them inside.
"Arms out," says the man, demonstrating for us. Harriett and I put our arms out. The man gives me a very generous pat down, though he doesn't linger on the erogenous zones, then does the same to Harriett, who endures it without beating him up.
"You're good," he says. He opens another door, and waves us through. The crowd is much louder now.
They're watching a cage fight. Son of a bitch.
There are about fifty people outside of the cage, seated on folding chairs. Inside the cage, which is about ten feet on each side, are two large, shirtless men. They both have blood on them, although one has more blood on his face and chest, and the other has more blood on his knuckles.
We've arrived just in time to see one absolutely brutal punch, which knocks the guy with blood on his face and chest against the cage wall. He tumbles forward and hits the cement floor.
About half of the crowd cheers, then everybody begins to chant-count backward from ten.
At four, the fallen fighter reaches up, grabs a metal link of the cage, and starts to pull himself up. But his hand slips off and he drops back to the floor. He doesn't try to get up again before the crowd finishes counting.
There's a mix of cheers and boos. A guy in a referee suit opens the cage door, and the winner emerges, waving his arms in victory. Two other men, dressed in white jumpsuits (presumably to better show off the blood), walk into the cage. They each take one of the loser's arms and drag him out. They continue dragging him to the corner of the room, behind a black curtain.
"Wasn't that great?" the referee, who I guess is also the announcer, says into his wireless microphone.
The crowd cheers their assent that it was, indeed, quite great. They're mostly men, mostly middle-aged, and mostly have crazed-looking eyes.
Harriett and I probably shouldn't just stand around. There are a few empty folding chairs, so we sit down in the ones that are as far from the cage as possible. This is still only about eight feet away, though a couple of the spectators are sitting close enough that their knees are pressed against the bars. Seems kind of dangerous.
"Are you ready for our next challenger?" the referee asks the crowd. The crowd cheers in the affirmative. "Please, put your hands together for...Cuh-Runch!"
"Cuh-Runch! Cuh-Runch! Cuh-Runch!" the crowd chants, as a very muscular man jumps to his feet, knocking over his chair. He's got a shaved head, and apparently did it right before he got here, because a couple of the nicks are still bleeding.
He tears off his shirt, tosses it to one of the three women in the audience, then does a slow jog into the cage.
"And his competitor, one of our favorites, put your hands together and howl in primal fury for...Maraud the Berserker!"
Harriett and I both sit up. A man walks out from behind the curtain. He's huge. A little flab, but mostly muscle. He's got a thick gray beard, and his gray hair hangs all the way down to the waist of his blue shorts. He doesn't acknowledge the cheering audience as he walks over to the cage. He steps inside and saunters to the opposite corner from where Cuh-Runch stands.
I don't know how he's going to fit into the back of my car, but he does seem like he'd be a valuable asset in a Cyclops hunt.
The referee slams the cage door shut. He points to a man sitting near the front. "Dice-Man! Roll 'em!"
The man is wearing a black t-shirt with "Dice-Man" written on the front. He holds up a pair of oversized dice, shakes them, and tosses them onto the floor.
"A five and a three!" the referee announces. "Not even close!"
The crowd groans in disappointment. Dice-Man gathers his dice and sits back down.
"The fight begins...now!"
Cuh-Runch moves to the center of the cage. Maraud, looking annoyed, stays where he is. The crowd is suddenly a lot quieter than they've been since we arrived.
"Come on!" says Cuh-Runch. "Let's do this!"
Maraud steps forward. Cuh-Runch lunges at him and punches him in the face. I wince. Maraud barely seems to feel the impact.
"Please don't do that again," he says.
Cuh-Runch now seems a bit unsure of himself. He steps back, but then steps forward again and throws another punch. Maraud doesn't even try to dodge. He just takes the blow to the jaw. A thin trickle of blood runs down the side of his mouth.
The crowd is completely silent, watching with rapt attention.
"I asked you not to do that again," he says. "Don't make me ask you a third time."
Cuh-Runch moves to the center of the ring. "Come on!" he shouts. "Fight me! That's why we're here! Fight me!"
Maraud stays in place. He wipes the blood off his mouth and onto his pants. He seems to be thinking about how now he's going to have to do a load of laundry.
Cuh-Runch rushes forward. He feints a punch that doesn't fool Maraud, then delivers a real blow that sends Maraud stumbling back against the cage wall.
Suddenly Maraud's demeanor completely changes. He looks really, really pissed. His hands clench into fists. I am incredibly glad that I am not the one in that cage with him.
"What did I just ask you?" he bellows.
And then Maraud goes, well, berserk. Before Cuh-Runch can run away, which is exactly what he looks like he wants to do, Maraud has grabbed him by the shoulders and is slamming him against the cage wall, over and over.
Now the crowd is cheering.
From where Harriett and I are seated, we can't see Cuh-Runch's back until Maraud is finally done with the slamming. As Maraud pulls him away, I see that the cage wall is dripping red, and when Maraud throws him face-first to the floor, I see a lot more red on his back.
I look over at Harriett. Her hand is over her mouth and she looks horrified. I agree that this is more wince inducing than throwing somebody over a second-floor rail.
Cuh-Runch rolls over as Maraud crouches down next to him. He grabs a handful of Maraud's beard, which does not go over well. After two slams against the cement floor, Cuh-Runch releases his grip on the beard, and after another slam, he releases his grip on consciousness.
"All right, all right, time to step away!" says the referee.
Maraud stands up and wanders back to the corner of the cage. The crowd counts down from ten to one, but Cuh-Runch doesn't do anything except breathe a little.
"Your winner, Maraud the Berserker!" says the referee, to overwhelming audience approval. He opens the door to the cage. Maraud walks out, looking ambivalent about the whole thing, and returns to the curtained area. The two men in white-and-red jumpsuits drag Cuh-Runch out of the cage and back to the curtained area, leaving a red trail behind him, which another guy quickly mops up.
"What should we do?" I ask Harriett. "Should we just go back there and try to talk to him?"
"Yes. We don't want him to leave out the back."
As Harriett stands up, the referee points to her. "And there's our next challenger! Everybody put your hands together for the Red-Haired Fury!"
Both of us look around. He can't really mean Harriett, can he? We didn't volunteer for this.
It's quickly clear that, yes, he means Harriett.
"Thaaaaaaaaaat's right," says the referee. "It's just like Fight Club. If this is your first time, you've got to get in the cage!"
The audience laughs and cheers. Apparently we are not the first people to have shown up to one of these events without bein
g made aware of this particular rule.
What the hell do we do? Try to politely decline? Make a run for it?
I stand up. "Sorry," I say. "There's been a misunderstanding. We're just here to speak with Maraud."
"He'll still be here when you're done!" says the referee. "Come on down, Red-Haired Fury!"
"I don't even get to pick my own name?" asks Harriett.
"No, really," I say, "this isn't at all why we're here. We're not going to participate. We'll just excuse ourselves and try not to spoil anybody's fun."
"How adorable," says the referee. "He thinks it's optional. Red-Haired Fury, everybody's waiting!"
Harriett waves for me to sit down. "I can do this."
Without waiting for me to protest, Harriett walks over to the cage and steps inside. I plop back into the folding chair, feeling as if I've already been punched in the gut.
"And her competitor," says the referee. "Give a bloodthirsty squeal to Lady Dooooooom!"
Lady Doom, unless her stage name really is Lady Dooooooom, stands up. She's dressed entirely in black leather, and looks old enough to vote and drink but not old enough to rent a car. She does a premature victory lap around the cage, getting the entire audience except for me to stand up and cheer.
She waves to the crowd and steps into the cage. The referee slams the door shut. "Dice-Man!"
The Dice-Man rolls.
"A six and a three," says the referee. "Oh, so close! The fight begins...now!"
Harriett and Lady Doom walk to the center of the cage.
Harriett punches her in the face.
Lady Doom drops to the floor and is still.
The crowd is kind of confused for a few moments. People look at each other, trying to figure out if that's really it, but there's no evidence that Lady Doom is going to get back up in a timely manner.
Valuable seconds are ticking away. I begin to count, "Ten! Nine! Eight!"
The crowd joins in. By the end of the countdown, Lady Doom remains unconscious at Harriett's feet. The referee opens the cage door, and Harriett emerges, victorious. The crowd, now firmly on her side, cheers.